The Travels of AIDS

As a health care professional who worked in San Francisco hospitals in the 1980's when gay men first were admitted with a mystery disease, I thought I knew something about AIDS. Daniel Halperin and Craig Timberg's book, Tinderbox: How the West Sparked the AIDS Epidemic and How the World Can Finally Overcome It adds so much more.  They describe how genetic studies have traced the virus to equatorial forests in Cameroon, how and when the virus was likely transmitted to humans, and more importantly, how it was transported to the colonial city of Leopoldsville. There it was free to break out and spread widely, carried to Haiti by returning Haitian temporary workers and then to the US via the gay community which vacationed in Haiti.

The book's primary focus is Africa, however, where heterosexual AIDS has been overwhelmingly disastrous.  The West contributed by opening Africa to new colonial cities and blazing routes through areas which never before had been connected. Missionaries discouraged polygamy but instead new patterns of multiple sexual partners developed, which fostered rampant spread of the virus.

The authors then describe how Western AIDS groups have focused on preventions which proved ineffective while not supporting more accurately targeted homegrown efforts. Halperin is a very strong advocate of circumcision, which has been shown to decrease HIV transmission by 60%, but was not initially supported by the aid groups. Africans have been open to it, since it was and still is practiced by some tribes. Reading reviews of this book on Amazon, I was amazed to see vigorous attacks by anti-circumcision advocates. Just the facts, folks.

Because patterns of sexual contacts are so different in Western countries from those in Africa, heterosexual AIDS epidemics there never have been likely. This is clearly illustrated. And there's so much more.  It's a fascinating book, despite the undertone of West bashing and the sense of crusading by Halperin. Read it and learn.

Who wins the diversity challenge?

"The Israelis", by journalist Donna Rosenthal, is a terrific read, each chapter devoted to a different group in Israel - the Ashkenazi, the Bedoin, the Mizrahi, the Arabs, the Christians, the Druze, the Ultra-Orthodox, and more.  Who would have thought that the Jewish nation of Israel would contain such insular and varied groups, each with its own customs and agenda? The book reads easily, like an extended newspaper feature, and is enlivened by many interviews with ordinary people trying to live ordinary lives amidst the social and political challenges. Chapters address the army, social and sexual norms and more, filling out the picture of life there.

I could not put this book down. Ultimately, it provides a vastly better understanding of the challenges facing Israel from within as well as from its neighbors, challenges which seem overwhelming.  Highly recommended.

Remembering Everything

"The Art and Science of Remembering Everything" sure sounded appealing, what with my increasing lapses lately.  But "Moonwalking with Einstein" by Joshua Foer isn't about that at all.  It explores the history and science of memory. And it describes the bizarre memory competitions, U.S.and World Championships in which competitors memorize the order of decks of playing cards, large lists of numbers, entire poems and more, with time limits of just a few minutes. The author, a journalist, becomes so fascinated by his subject that he himself trains and competes in the U.S. Memory Championship.

The methodology of memory competitors, which is interesting because it could be put to more practical use, involves constructing vivid visual images for each item.  A visual image, the more outlandish the better, placed in a mental location such as the front door of one's childhood home, is the key to retrieval.

I found it amazing that even the Greeks had a well-developed memory methodology which was similar. Remembering things was so much more important in early times before widespread access to written material. And today we have externalized so much to electronic devices that we barely need to recall anything, only where we're stored the information.  Who knows the phone numbers of their friends any more? Or their own schedules?

This was a fun book, with an intruiging subject, lots of scientific anecdotes as well as nearly certifiable characters.

What is it that history teaches us?

Does it help us hear the cries of the past? "The Warmth of Other Suns" is a beautifully written, stunningly researched account of the migration of 6 million black Americans from the south to northern and western cities between 1915-1970. They fled Jim Crow laws, lynchings, violence and exploitation and streamed into major cities, emptying the south of its agricultural labor.

This history comes alive through the stories of three individuals: Mississippi sharecropper Ida Mae Gladney, who left for Chicago in 1937, educated activist George Starling, who fled Florida for Harlem in 1945, and surgeon Robert Foster, who abandoned Louisiana for better opportunity in Los Angeles in 1953. All were driven from their birthplaces by institutionalized racism, crushing humiliations, and the determination to find something better.

Author Isabel Wilkerson, herself a child of southern migrants, follows her subjects on their journeys. They struggled in new communities where they could now vote and sit anywhere on a bus but faced invisible, unwritten barriers. Still, nearly all would say that opportunities were greater and life was better. They cooked southern food and practiced their southern faith. They worked long hours, had small families, and stayed married. Yet somehow the ghettos into which they were crowded became dangerous places for their children.

This story is absolutely engrossing. Wilkerson gives us the details which bring it vividly and compellingly to life.

How can the deaf understand sound?

Have you ever wondered about deafness? How does one live in a silent world? In Myron Uhlberg's "Hands of My Father", a memoir about growing up the hearing son of two deaf parents, he tries to answer his father's questions about the nature of sound. "Does sound have rhythm? Does it rise and fall like the ocean?" Myron's father Louis expresses himself using his hands, face and body, methods which are just as powerful as speech. But those who cannot understand sign are cut off from much of his communication. Heartbreakingly, this includes Louis' own parents and siblings.

Young Myron, born in 1933, is the bridge between the worlds of the hearing and the deaf, interpreting each to the other as soon as he can speak aloud and sign. He cycles back and forth between adult responsibilities and childhood desires, even being first intermediary for the needs of his infant brother.

This is a sweet, loving story of a family with special challenges and special bonds. The deaf parents have rich and complex interactions but spend their lives isolated from the world outside. Their son takes on huge responsibilities yet his life is immeasurably enhanced by his unique perspective.

Everyman in Hitler's Berlin

"In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin"

by Erik Larson

This is the tale of William E. Dodd, the U.S. ambassador to Germany in 1933-37, a somewhat naive academic appointed by Roosevelt after the post had been declined by four others. Dodd, Chair of the history department at University of Chicago and author of Woodrow Wilson's biography, desired nothing more than an undemanding position which would allow him time to write his master work "Rise and Fall of the Old South".

The Dodd family, including 2 adult children (Martha, age 24, is a key figure here, partly due to the detailed diaries she kept) was determined to live in Berlin modestly, in deference to Americans suffering during the depression. This included shipping their beat-up Chevrolet to use abroad, at a time when Hitler's men flaunted their power in giant black touring cars.

Hitler's appointment as Chancellor in Jan 1933 was followed immediately by a brutal spasm of state-condoned violence, as storm troopers rampaged, beating, arresting and sometimes murdering tens of thousands of communists, socialists and Jews. Dodd and other diplomats watched these events, imagining that they couldn't continue, that Hitler could not possibly maintain power, and seizing on any sign that he was moderating. We see infatuation with the regime, fruitless efforts to work with it, and either gradual or quick realization of the significance of what was happening.

Eventually it was clear to all those posted in Germany that whatever Hitler said or didn't say about wanting peace, Germany was actively re-militarizing in violation of the Treaty of Versailles.

We have the benefit of hindsight, so it's a fascinating challenge to put oneself in the place of these diplomats. They naturally socialized with high Nazi officials such as Goebbels and Goring. Daughter Martha, always a fun girl, had affairs with the head of the Gestapo and the future head of the KGB simultaneously.

This is an excellent book, a slice of time containing maybe a few too many diplomatic communiques, but compelling all the while.

Unbroken but maybe bent a bit

What are the limits of human endurance? And what gives people the strength to persevere? "Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption" opens with a riveting glimpse of men adrift for weeks on a bathtub-sized raft in the Pacific, stalked by sharks hurling themselves onto the raft, then strafed by a Japanese plane. I was hooked immediately. Author Laura Hillenbrand (Sea Biscuit) next takes us back to the beginning, tracing the life of Louis Zamporini, troublemaker kid, thief, Olympic miler and WW II airman missing in the Pacific. As his ordeal unfolds, one cannot imagine what will come next. Readers learn about competitive running, the war in the Pacific, human endurance, frailty and redemption. We see yet again what men in war are subjected to, how they rise to the occasion, and the price they pay. Tough, headstrong Louie Zamporini in particular was well equipped to persevere. This biography is a great read.

Oranges and Lemons

I wasn't going to blog this one, so as not to overdo the Israel topic, but its similarity to "The Lemon Tree" warrants attention for someone interested in understanding Israel's 20th century history. " City of Oranges" by Adam LeBor also chooses one area, in this case the vibrant historic city of Jaffa, and follows a number of resident families through the tumultuous events there from the 1920's to the present.

Two of the families are Christian, two are Muslim, and four are Jewish. Some left in 1948, some stayed, some arrived afterward. All suffered. It was a challenge keeping everyone straight, but it hardly mattered: they express themselves very clearly.

As in "The Lemon Tree", an enormous amount of detail about political changes throughout Israel and the rest of the Middle East anchors the personal stories. I'd recommend "Oranges" over "Lemon" as a more comprehensive view of the subject.

Two Families, one home

The Lemon Tree, written by Sandy Tolan in 2007, traces 2 real families' personal experiences on opposite sides of the Palestinian/Israeli divide. Based entirely on interviews and primary sources including archives and diaries , it imagines nothing which has not been documented.

The Khairi family of Palestinian Arabs were displaced in 1948 after the Israeli/Arab war leading to the independence of Israel from the house they had built in the village of al-Ramla many years before. The Eshkanazi family, refugees from Bulgaria, moved into the vacant house and raised their daughter there, while the Khairis dreamed of returning. The book recounts how the grown children of each family develop a relationship spanning many years after Bashir Khairi comes knocking on the door. They come to respect one another and try hard to understand the other's point of view, but ultimately cannot agree.

It is painful to watch the Khairis' longing to return, with Bashir spending years in prison for his activities. Here in the US home is often portable; we move, settle in new places, build lives there. The Lemon Tree gives us a window into a culture and circumstance where this seems impossible.

There is so much more here, detail about political developments which provide the background needed to understand the unfolding of events. It's a sad recounting of the micro effects of larger changes.

The Long Journey

This is the first of three non-fiction or historical fiction books I'll be blogging about the history of the Holy Land. First I revisited James Michener's "The Source", published in 1965, more than 1000 pages. Using the device of explaining artifacts from different eras unearthed at an archeological dig in Israel, Michener moves through time. He starts about 3500 BCE with cave dwellers, tracing the birth of religious feelings and ritual along with the evolution of agrarian societies. Every few decades or centuries we visit the area again to see a somewhat changed way of life. The constants are many: people of different religions trying to co-exist (or not), and conquerers blasting through massacring multitudes. The area is controlled successively by Jews, Babylonians, Assyrians, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Crusaders, Ottomans and British.

My interest certainly picked up as it reached the more familiar Greek and Roman times. Historical figures pop up, often in unexpected contexts, adding a human dimension to the general carnage.

Reading this years ago, I recall being discouraged about human nature, with all the killing again and again. The book evoked the same sentiment this time. But it's a valuable aid to understanding the history of the area.

The most fascinating Catherine

Catherine the Great by Henri Troyat takes an already fascinating history and enlivens it with focus on all manner of intrigue, scheming, sex and more sex. This naturally kept me glued to the pages. The tale of how an obscure 14 year old German princess came to be betrothed to the Grand Duke Peter, heir of Empress Elizabeth of Russia, and plotted her way into power is mesmerizing. The loathsome, infantile half-wit Peter is so bizarre as to seem a fictional creation. The young princess doesn't let that deter her; instead she carefully endears herself to the Russian people and engineers a coup the moment Peter ascends the throne.

As the years go by, the book does highlight Catherine's personal life rather than giving a thorough account of historical context, but the reader gets a sense of what Russia was like at that time for both royalty and for serfs, who were merely property. Catherine did succeed in bringing her adopted country more into the European mainstream, and may have been the first royal who espoused (although did not practice) egalitarianism.

This spiced-up biography is an entertaining and informative read.

Replay

REPLAY by Ken Grimwood is a fascinating look at someone who has the chance to live his life over again, and over again. Each time he faces the question of what he will do differently, knowing the mistakes he's made before. This isn't a "Groundhog Day", as it raises serious questions of what really is important, and why we even bother, since we die anyway in the end. In each of his lives, the protagonist Jeff Winston makes different choices based on what he's learned before, striving to finally get it right. We never know what really is right anyway.

This book, winner of the 1988 World Fantasy Award for best novel, moves the reader quickly along with the plot, all the while provoking substantial reflection. I will remember it for a long time.

A Burmese Odyssey

The tragedy of Burma has been much in the news in recent months, and I was drawn to pick up what turned out to be a remarkable memoir of struggle, luck and transformation. In 'from the land of green ghosts, A Burmese Odyssey', author Pascal Khoo Thwe tells his story. He grew up as a hill tribesman from the tiny remote Paduang tribe, famous for their "giraffe-necked" women. This Buddhist, animist culture was touched by Catholic missionaries who supported the education of young Pascal and eventually his interest in English literature. We follow his journey to seminary, university and then years as a guerrilla fighter in the jungle as the military dictatorship's regime becomes increasingly brutal. Ultimately, via coincidence, initiative, luck and commitment, Pascal is rescued and brought from the jungle to Cambridge. He's the first Burmese tribesman ever to study English there.

That's the story, amazing enough, but even better is how it speaks about the ease and difficulties of melding cultures, the pain of dislocation, and the universal way literature can speak to all peoples.

You Are What You Eat

On "The Omnivore's Dilemma", by Michael Pollan

Okay, I know this book's been out awhile and is old news now, but it wasn't old news to me. I was completely absorbed in the bizarre world of U.S. food production and couldn't put the book down.

Author Pollan describes in detail the great agricultural megalopolous of the midwest, which produces prodigious amounts of corn, but not the kind we eat from the cob! Instead we eat it in every processed product we consume. U.S. Americans have more corn in their systems than do the Mexicans whose diets are directly based on maize.

The book starts out with impact, exploring corn as a commodity and following a calf from birth through the feedlot and to slaughter. Here we find out more than we want to know about the animals we consume.

The second section educates us about various permutations of organic farms and how they operate. I found this portion helpful in understanding the significance of such characteristics as cage-free, antibiotic-free, omega 3 enriched, and vegetarian fed when choosing eggs. We also see how a pure organic farm sustains itself though inter-related natural cycles.

Although the final section on preparing a meal entirely from ingredients hunted, foraged or home grown is less compelling, this is a terrific book. It's a great start to begin understanding from whence our food comes and what on earth is in it. Highly recommended.

Faraway Fiction

Many of us are fascinated by putting ourselves into another time and place, imagining life in another context. In Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, author Lisa See does just that, taking the reader and the characters into rural 19th century China.

Expressing herself in the language patterns and through the lens of attitudes of women of that time, the protagonist Snow Flower tells us of the life of a village woman from childhood into old age. While most of us in the West are familiar with the customs of foot binding and arranged marriages, the book includes unfamiliar ones such as secret writing among females and formal sworn sisterhoods. Some of this gives the impression of revisionist history, ancient Chinese life viewed by contemporary women looking for signs of incipient feminism. But the special writing language invented by women not permitted to become literate has recently been documented. The book has been so well researched that one has to conclude that it is accurate in other areas as well.

The prose, full of flowery metaphor, often seems formulaic as it speaks in the rhythms of old Chinese writings. And the author tells us too much rather than letting us interpret situations ourselves. Overall, this is an interesting read during which you'll learn more about that time, although as we say in Book Club, " it's not great literature".